Mother
by sunANDdust
Summary: On the night of her charity ball, Talia thinks of her mother: the one dichotomous person she never really got to know.


Mother

If I won't be able to do it, you must do it for me. Her mother's voice was young and full of concern when it rung in her ears though she'd spoken these words years ago. You shall be brave, _Talia_. You shall return.

Return? Talia's face didn't show any emotions when she turned around and ditched the eccentric and infamous billionaire she knew as Bruce Wayne, heir of the Wayne family and Wayne Enterprise. And as Batman. But it didn't matter which name he used, which face he wore. She knew that he was her enemy who could destroy everything.

But doubt was no part of her nature, it simply had gone missing when she was born in the hell her mother had granted herself to get buried in alive.

"But she had no right to bury me along with herself.", Talia thought and she dropped the ridiculous Venetian carnival mask from her hand to the floor. The world expected fancy soirees and exquisite merriments when the impeccable invitations to one of Miranda Tates` charity events arrived, perfect as the young woman herself appeared. They would flock to her house en masse, just as the Roman bourgoisie and aristocracy used to push into the Colloseum, eager for violence and ecstacy. The modern high society of Gotham would enter her companies with the same look of greedy lust, the same ill fascination.

Bread and circuses.

Now, Wayne believed she was angry with him for ignoring her whenever she had tried to speak to him, tried to persuade Alfred to let her in. But she did not feel anything. Talia hesitated when she looked down into the foyer and registered the crowds of people with one simple glance. Old men danced with young women, young men drank whiskey and whine and lurched within that ocean of lights, colors and sensuality; they all got swamped by the hidden sexuality of the evening lasting in the air like a heavy perfume. Talia shuddered, uncomfortable with that violence that would follow such decadence as sexuality was something she'd never encounter without a primal sense of fear.

Sexuality had been her mother's death; first of all when she gave herself to the young mercenary who would never be a father for her child. The second time when the men of the Pit raped her, leaving Talia behind. The child a highborn woman had damned, a woman that never knew misery and poverty before.

"We abandon other people to our own fate in fear of suffering alone.", Talia thought and left the overheated hall, entering the lounge through the doors her butlers opened for and closed behind her. She pushed the door to the balcony aside and stepped into the cool night air, taking deep breaths.

You will not die in here, Talia., she heard her mother say, pointing at the stars above. One day, you will escape.

"There would have been no need to escape if you would have loved _me_ enough to stay alive within the world, not captured under the earth.", she told her mother before noticing she'd spoken out loud. Frustrating. Talia stared into the night and listened to the steady noises of nightly Gotham.

"I never knew you, mother. I can't even remember how you looked like. I can remember you cries of fear and panic when the men entered our cell and-" Her voice broke down and she cleared her throat. Once upon a time she'd expected nothing to appear worse than her father who had excommunicated her dearest friend from the League of Shadows; Talia still felt the anger and despair inside of her thinking of the man who had conceived the nameless child of a warlords daughter, which became Talia, who transformed to Talia al Ghul and became Miranda Tate in the end. She thought that it was impossible for her to forgive him. But didn't hurt her heart the most when she thought of the unknown mother who was only a shadow in her memories? Did not her voice in Talia's head choke her even more than her fathers betrayel could ever do?

_I live with chains which do not bother_

_I always wished I had a mother._

Talia felt a hate she could not name. Only in the darkest hours she wished to rip her hair off her head, the hair that felt as her mothers whenever she'd sneaked up against her for warmth in the middle of a deserts night. Only with the dry smell of sand in her nose she wanted to peel of her skin with a knife, the skin that smelled like her mother used to smell.

_Mother that never gave birth to me_

_That night I had vowed to thee:_

_I'll endow you a disease_

_And dump you in a river deep._

Talias hands clenched around the balustrade so her fingers turned white until something cold dropped onto her skin.

She looked down, afraid of rain which would have ruined the garden party behind her house. She'd expected the party to take place without any complications, it was part of her plan, part of something that was hidden deep inside of her: a fire and a destruction. Blood and gold as it had been shed in the Colosseum. Let them lull themselves into a sense of security., one of the voices in her head whispered but she couldn't make out if it was her fathers or her mother's voice. Make them lust for more and then you will strike. Like a lightning. But your vengeance will be grim to a point where natural phenomenons have no power no more.

Burn them down.

And then Bane had pulled her away from the jeering crowd around her mother, she held her little knife in her hand, her knife of vengeance covered in blood as her mother screeched in pain and horror. The drop on her hand was no rain, there was not a single cloud in the sky. Miranda...Talia stared at the single drop of fluid until she saw it twice and coloured in a dark shade of red. But it could not be a tear, it simply could not...Why couldn't I come with you?

_In her lungs there lives an eel_

_On my brow a birth mark, feel!_

_Excise it with my small knifes kiss_

_Though I have to bleed to death._

* * *

A/N: Just a little short story I came up with in the middle of the night! Reviews would be nice, I love feedback. The poetry part was inspired by the song "Mutter" by the German band Rammstein. I could not translate it word by word but the essence is the same, so just to make sure: I do not own the lyrics, Rammstein does!

Thank you for reading!


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